Yeah, Lord Knows they couldn’t squeeze maybe 10 whole minutes of Robot Fightin’ into an hour long show. Thank God for the DVR.
Day 4 has the first of the second matches, and as such gives us our first glimpse of the true contenders. This particular day 4 also gave me a chance to note a troubling trend which is absolutely kneecapping more than a few possible contenders, perhaps even favorites.
Put your safety goggles on, folks, it’s going to get ugly.
One year ago Bunny Soriel’s horizontal cylinder spinner Malice got a friendly draw in both the regular contest and Bounty Hunters, but this season it opened with a complete drubbing at the gears of Tantrum and now faces Jackpot. Man, I’ve long suspected that reality TV producers just have it out for certain contestants, and I’m certain of it now. As for Jackpot, the Vegas budget chopper, despite betraying some reliability issues, it’s a perfect 4-0 in quallies; like the city’s hockey team, it’s somehow accomplishing way, way more than it’s supposed to.
Pete Abrahamson talks a bit about Malice’s hardware before the match.
Malice (0-1) vs. Jackpot (1-0)
The bots sprint past each other and quickly turn to face each other. Wepper; Jackpot stays grounded and Malice gets thrown. Three smaller collisions follow. Some juking, and…another wepper. Some dogfighting before it looks like Jackpot catches Malice’s corner, sending it spinning away and knocking it over. The cylinder is now set high and in a bad position to hit anything on Jackpot. Another wepper to little effect. And Malice gets bowled over again. It’s absorbing the shots well enough, but you need to get something in response if you’re going to win. And…it’s damaged and having drive issues. It gets knocked on the screws, where we can clearly see that the right wheel is completely dead. Jackpot has started to smoke, but too little, too late.
Oh yeah, broken light. Suffice to say that I have very little interest in this ever being brought up again. 
You never know what to expect from Ribbot; today it’s sporting a multi-toothed horizontal disk and a blue color scheme in homage/mockery/whatever of its opponent. Overhaul, returning after a hiatus, is another one of those enigmatic curved-arm-thingy grabbers. Owner Charles Guan updated the drive motor to keep up with the superfast machines this season. He also intends to throw the opponent on the upper deck, for which I wish him the best of luck, inasmuch as said deck has mattered somewhere between and “squat” and “squat point one” in the first three episodes.
Ribbot (1-0) vs. Overhaul
Two head-on collisions which knock both machines around. Two more shots which spin Overhaul around. And Overhaul can’t move anymore. 
Geez. Update the damn durability, Guan.
Korean newcomer Blade is one of the more unusual designs, a wide, tall base with an angled panel in the back in which the two wheels are embedded, atop which rests a long arm with a short, thick horizontal blade attached. The rap against full body spinners is that when you send force in every direction, it’s tough to get an appreciable amount of it on the enemy. Blade looks like it has the opposite problem, the force concentrated into such a small area that it’s easy to maneuver around. Saw-armed Skorpios, like Ribbot, is another one of those seemingly unimpressive designs that keeps finding ways to win, and there’s no reason not to consider it the favorite here.
Pete Abrahamson goes on about Skorpios’ armor and…it’s…actually pretty informative. Hot dang, he’s done a complete 180 from the clown job of the first two episodes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a reality TV regular go in that direction.
Blade vs. Skorpios
Blade starts out with its back to Skorpios, allowing it a free hit, and it only gets worse as Skorpios smothers it by the same rear end into a corner made by the upper platform and fires away. Two more hits follow, and something’s come loose. Skorpios is already smoking a bit but nothing serious. Blade slams into the wall and faces Skorpios, but the blade has stopped. It starts again, but by then Skorpios has caught its back again. If you know what the bloody hell Team Blade’s “strategy” is supposed to be, feel free to enlighten me. The rest of the match is comparable to a drunk executioner gleefully swinging away and managing to graze a limb every so often. Extremely unsatisfying yooner for Skorpios.
Lengthy segment with Ray Billings where he unleashes his deadliest logical fallacies. 
Haah…all right, real quick. No one’s saying Tombstone doesn’t hit hard. No one saying Tombstone isn’t capable of spectacular knockouts. No one’s saying Tombstone doesn’t draw crowds. The point is, there was a time when beating Tombstone was a very big deal. That ended last season, and getting killed by freaking Captain Shrederator was just the nail in the coffin. You’ll still get your wins, but your time as a terrifying unstoppable dominator is over. Anyway, I’m anticipating an unproblematic demolition of Mammoth, which has been stuck in mediocrity for its entire existence and is pretty easy pickings for any strong machine.
Trivia: In every season Mammoth’s competed in, it’s won its first match and lost its second.
Tombstone (0-1) vs. Mammoth (1-0)
They meet. Mammoth gets clobbered while Tombstone gently spins away. A bit of stuff falls off Mammoth. They meet again. Same result; a bunch more stuff falls off of Mammoth. A third hit, and Tombstone spins a lot more forcefully, the blade making contact with the wall, but it’s f…
No. No way. Is this really happening? Tombstone’s left wheel is out of commission. And Mammoth’s right wheel has fallen off, meaning that neither bot is capable of controlled movement. For the first time ever I hear the ref say “simultaneous incapacitation”, and don’t even frickin’ PRETEND that I’m not going to use a cute two-syllable term for that. 
The count starts, and it ends…and that’s how the fight ends. And also for the first time ever, a fight where Tombstone smashes off a big chunk of its opponent goes to a decision. Ultimately it’s a yooner for Tombstone, so no harm done, but Billings has to be seriously concerned. This was the equivalent of beating the Jacksonville Jaguars with an overtime field goal. Bad, bad look.
Lucky, hailing from Canada, is the product of “all around nice guy” Mark Demers. It’s a flipper, and it’s designed to “force judges’ decisions”, which I’m guessing is working out just as well for it as it’s doing for Duck right now. It has an absolutely killer opener against Tantrum, the super-mobile undercutter which made to semis last season.
Lucky vs. Tantrum (1-0)
Tantrum zips by while Lucky pivots in place. Lucky gets the first hit, sending Tantrum a decent distance, then immediately dashes in and gets a second hit. Then a third, and Tantrum is in trouble. Then a fourth which puts it up against the wall…and…
Holy cow, he did it! Tantrum is stuck on the wall at a bad angle and can’t free itself! Mark Demers, the complete nobody out of nowhere, is going to score a colossal upset! He knew that he’d have to attack hard and fast and not give his foe any chance to breath, and it worked to perfection! An incredible toppling of a top favorite! Break out the…
Oh, wait, no…he just…knocked Tantrum off…the…wall.
OKAY, TIME OUT - Gods, I am so sick of this crap. When you catch a break like this, how is accepting it and walking away the winner not the only sane response here? Is there any other competition in existence where letting the opponent back in it is seen as anything other than cement-headed idiocy? Hey, you know what my response is when I take a cheapie and Florian inevitably whines “The fans wanted to see a fight!” “They got a fight. I won.”
…and of course Team Tantrum, with the extra time to clear their heads, immediately turn it around and grind Lucky to bits. 
YOU KNOW WHAT, I’M NOT FINISHED YET - In sumo, there’s a practice called “yaocho”. Not to be confused with match fixing (which is 100% illegal and punished very harshly whenever evidence of it comes to light) it’s more of an undeclared social obligation between stables. Although it’s somewhat complex and highly subtle (as you would expect of Japan), the gist of it is that a sumotori near the end of a tournament who does not need a win…either he already has his winning record or he already has a losing record and can’t avoid demotion…is supposed to go easier on a sumotori who does. Not to the level of obvious slacking or outright tanking, but just making it easier: Don’t charge as hard at tachiai, don’t struggle so hard in lockup, don’t resist strongly on the tawara, that sort of thing. Kind of like resting the starters at the end of an NFL season. However, an extremely important component of this is that it’s a two way street. A sumotori concedes effort against an opponent with the explicit understanding that his opponent will return the favor in a later tournament. Just because you weigh 200kg doesn’t mean you get a free lunch. Sumotori who refuse to engage in yaocho, or, worse, accept a gift without reciprocating, often have some pretty rough rides. The most common scenario is that he tears it up in lower maegashira, he gets promoted to komusubi or high maegashira, he finds himself with a first place schedule he’s completely unequipped to deal with and no one willing to lend him a hand, he tumbles down the ranks, rinse and repeat. (Sumo fans even have a term for this: “elevator rikishi”.) I totally dig yaocho, and I’ve never had any objections to its existence in sumo as a social construct and a means of creating a bond between competitors.
Which is why I am absolutely not cool with this “let the fans see a fight” garbage. Where’s the payback? What does the rightful winner of the match get out of it? Unless there’s some kind of prefight agreement in place (and if there was we would’ve heard about it by now), I’m not giving anyone squat without compensation. And I’d expect exactly the same from my opponents. Two-way street.
Goddammit. 
Shots of Martin Mason making lots of loud noises, which is not helping my mood any.
Another rookie steps up, Glitch, sporting a small eggbeater drum; it’s up against Ghost Raptor, a funky bar spinner which has not had a great deal of success. In an unusual twist, Team Glitch was almost unable to make it to the Battlebox after getting a screw stuck in the machine, and Ghost Raptor honcho Chuck Pinzer came over and drilled it out just so he could have this fight. (I imagine the temptation to, ah, “accidentally” put a hole in some vital component must have been fierce.)
Ghost Raptor vs. Glitch
Weapons spin up. They maneuver, sidestep, circle, trying to find an opening…and Glitch gets the first good hit, front to side. Glitch seems to have trouble and backs into the screws. GR advances, and… Seriously, what the hell was that? The front end with the forks and spinner is hinged, and it raises up and lowers…directly on Glitch’s spinner, sending it tumbling. Seriously, I am seeing some truly putrid driving this season. GR, momentarily stuck on its rear end, backs off and re-aligns while Glitch…doesn’t do much of anything. GR, spinner not moving, advances, and Glitch retreats. What the…I can’t even… Glitch’s weapon is working but practically nothing else is, and the two bots kind of clumsily mince around for a while. Glitch…isn’t moving! I’m not sure how it happened, but it wedged its back end under the wall! A pretty embarrassing own goal, and now Pinzer…who helped this machine make the box tonight, don’t forget…has the win so long as he backs off. There’s definitely no reason why he shouldn’t now that his weapon is down. Just back off, accept your good…
…and he just helped Glitch get unstuck.
OKAY, TIME OUT - AAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!! 
Yeah, his karma is through the roof, Rose. Well, you know the drill: Glitch discovers about five extra winds, completely turns it around, and nails a 3 at the buzzer to ice it. 
ONE TIME for ALL OF PRELIMS would’ve been torturous enough.
You know what, I appreciate the desire to have a lot of fun and put on a show. But there are proper venues for that. Exhibitions. Demonstrations. Fairs. Skills competitions. Theater. When you enter a competition, you play to win. If you can’t do that, step aside and give your shot to someone who can. How does anyone not get this?
I don’t feel like wasting one more keystroke on that howler monkey Martin Mason, so a few words about Jameson Go, driver of Sawblaze. He says that anything less than the Giant Nut is “a failure”. And you know what…he’s absolutely right! Inasmuch as, in the usual ridiculous manner of reality TV, there is a grand total of one prize with everyone else getting a one-fingered pat on the back (there was a Desperado tournament, but that got kiboshed), so second place is indeed the first loser and third and below is, well, the even firster loser-er. My question is simple: What is the price of failure? I mean, bots like Pain Train, Rusty, P1, Sm#e#, and now even Witch Doctor and Tombstone have had pretty epic fails, and that hasn’t stopped them from doing…well, anything! I don’t want to hear you cry “I’ve FAAIIILLEEDD!” unless you have something on the level of at least self-flagellation lined up.
On to the damn main event. Sawblaze, saw arm, Madcatter, drum, whatever.
Main event - Sawblaze vs. Madcatter
Madcatter dashes by and sideswipes Sawblaze; spun around, no damage. Sawblaze does a nice sidestep and gets the first shot, to Madcatter’s side. Madcatter is momentarily hung up on Sawblaze, which drives it all the way to a screw and drops the saw again. They go for a ride and Sawblaze scores another free hit; something definitely came off. Finally Madcatter gets untangled and presses the attack…running up on Sawblaze’s forks and skidding off to the side. The weapon is still running at full speed but can’t seem to reach anything on Sawblaze. The clown hammer joins the fun, dinging Madcatter’s lifter forks…and Sawblaze takes another shot, just left of the spinner. Madcatter’s minibot gets in the wrong place at the wrong time and grinds to a halt, smoking. Madcatter escapes again and flees to open space, desperately trying to get some kind of offense going. Sawblaze introduces it to the screws again. It’s looking all but hopeless…
“…and we’ve got something smoking inside the Battlebox!” That’s right, though Rose didn’t see it, the minibot is absolutely pouring with smoke, so much it’s obscuring about a third of the box. This… 
again, you cannot script these moments, folks. Meanwhile Sawblaze had Madcatter in its grip, grinding away and pounding it repeatedly against the upper deck screw. I actually think it would be better to not put it on the deck, just continue punishing it.
Sawblaze gives up the attempt and pounds Madcatter from pillar to post, and now it’s just lost a bunch of parts. It’s nearly over. Finally, Madcatter gets inverted, takes one more clown hammer bop. That’s it; it can’t move, it’s mercifully over.
All right. 
It takes a great machine and a great driver to win the Giant Nut, and based on tonight, I have to call Sawblaze a favorite. Look, it’s pretty simple. You want to Not Get Knocked Out, learn from Duck. You want to show off, learn from Grabot. You want to make a lot of noise, learn from Icewave. You want to win your matches and contend for the Giant Nut, learn from Jameson Go and Sawblaze, who DO WHAT IT TAKES TO WIN. Maneuver, don’t be an easy target, keep the pressure on, use the box to your advantage, and use continuous accurate attacks to wear down the opponent. Don’t go for the BIIIIG KNOCKOUT, don’t flail all over the place, just whap, whap, whap, piece by piece. Don’t worry about a knockout. If you get it, fantastic, but the important thing is that you do damage, control the fight, and secure victory one way or another.
Go does a bunch of “What do YOU think?” bullcrap because there clearly haven’t been enough godawful irritations tonight. Then the mike goes over to Mason, who’s surprisingly gracious in defeat. Basically he says that he’s not surprised this was his first loss, as Sawblaze is a tough opponent, but there’s a long way to go and he’s looking forward to getting payback in the tournament. That’s…a really good sentiment, actually. As soon as he drops this tryhard WWE sewage, I might actually start liking the guy.
Whew. Hopefully day 5 will be less…rollercoaster-y.
My hunch is that in the early days, robots weren’t nearly as good at damaging each other. Still, they could push each other around, and control was a bigger issue. So who wins the battle? VHS or Betamax? Neither, it’s DVD. No wait, Blu-Ray. IOW, adding some elements to the arena helped builders find ways to “end” their opponents.
I like the UK version in the sense that you can be some total badass facing off against some wimp, but you still better damn well respect the arena. Here’s a video…you can find many on youtube.
The badasses, as I recall, in the UK: Chaos2, Razer, Hypnodisc.
@DKW I anticipate the appearance of your commentary on this here Board almost as eagerly as I await the new season of Battlebots to appear.
I’m gratified to see that maybe you are temperinng your jaundice toward Martin Mason. Yeah, he does put on the whole WWE shtick but --ahem! – in case you hadn’t noticed, Battlebots is WWE. Mason teaches at an itty bitty j.c. and Mad Catter is a student project. I’d say that’s some mighty fine teaching going on.
Gotta join you in the communal dope slap w.r.t. Ghost Raptor and Lucky though. Haven’t these guys heard about what happens to Nice Guys? And the good citizens of Hell are strapping on the ice skates when the best Tombstone can do against Mammoth is Mutual Assured Incapacitation. That may well end up being the most jaw-dropping match of the season.
I think Farouk’s neck beard looks pretty silly.
Here’s a little behind the scenes write up from a member of the Ghost Raptor team;
bobsmom101 - Could you clarify your claim that Battlebots is like the WWE? I’ll admit I haven’t been a wrestling fan for absolutely ages, but I don’t like the idea that certain people have to be “personalities”. It may be fun for a few matches but it can quickly get old, especially if they can’t back it up in the Battlebox. Geez, am I really the only one left who appreciates concepts like “witty” and “irrelevant” and “playful”? It’s full-burner monster truck announcer mode or nothing now?
And again, I can appreciate wanting to give the fans a show, but there has to be a better option than throwing away a win. What I think would work would be an “optional do-over”. How it would work is if both sides agree that the way the match ended was cheap or unsatisfying or whatever, they could have an rematch (it’d have to be untelevised, of course). If the same bot won, that would serve as proof that it was superior and the result of the first match would be unchanged. However, if the loser of the first match won, it would officially be a split, with neither bot taking a win or a loss (a third number on the right which would have the same significance as a draw). Obviously some kinks that need to be worked out, but it would prevent the wrong bot from getting a full win, which is what I really dislike about showing mercy.
Well, it sure isn’t the Olympics or even Ninja Warrior. They’ve put a lot of show time into the spectacle: the costumes, the parading around, the trash talking, what passes for “banter” between the hosts, even the glitzy pyrotechnic BattleBox. As has been mentioned before, all of this takes time away from the actual matches.
The window dressing doesn’t particularly bother me, but it was nostalgic to watch a clip show of the college matches from 2010 that showed up on my YouTube list. There was a lot more time devoted to the contests, and the bots were – not sure how to put it – homelier and cuter than the current sleek, expensive models.
So far it seems that, unlike WWE, the matches themselves are honest and not staged. If that ever changes, I’ll stop watching.
Battlebots! Absolutely not the Olympics! But with NBC’s hegemony, who can tell anymore?
PRELIMS DAY 5 2/3/22
Bunch of second matches on deck. First up is Free Shipping, which lost a close one against Minotaur and looks like it’s about to lose a whole bunch of parts against the destroyer Uppercut. Prepare for a whole bunch of “Should’ve been left in mothballs” snark once its inauspicious comeback is over.
Free Shipping (0-1) vs. Uppercut (1-0)
The machines rush at each other and clip at the corner; Uppercut does a spectacular tumbling wipeout while FS remains grounded. US gets properly reoriented, whereupon FS rushes in and scoops it up, then drops it. A rather inauspicious start for the prohibitive favorite, which is of course just a tease, and yep, there’s that big shot which knocks FS backwards. The a second…
FWOOOOOOSH
Zounds. That was an inferno. Shades of last year’s Sawblaze match. That’s the big problem with using a flamethrower against a heavy hitter like Uppercut. When it goes up, it goes up. (Plus you don’t have your primary weapon anymore and junk.) And with that, FS’s status has gone from “dark horse” to “target practice”. Uppercut puts this away by knocking off the wedges then putting it on its side. FS clings to life for a few more seconds driving on two wheels, but eventually comes to rest on the rail and stays there for good.
Alex Satori mentions the Sawblaze match, then admits that he was in trouble at the beginning. Insert your random Super Bowl meme here.
Up next are two bots with similar styles coming off of somewhat unimpressive wins. As I mentioned on the Shatter/SubZero match on YouTube, the two questions with any hammer bot are 1. Can it hit the broad side of a barn? 2. Can it damage the broad side of a barn? I’d say Shatter has a slight edge in both departments, but this one really could go either way. Shatter is sporting a pointy “pendulum” style blade known as “Mary Special”.
Trivia: There was some banter online prior to the match, which usually means that the match is going to be completely terrible one way or another.
Abrahamson goes on about Shatter’s design specs and how they fit into its overall strategy. Team Shatter is going after Blacksmith’s vulnerable chain with that narrow blade.
Blacksmith (1-0) vs. Shatter (1-0)
Shatter gets the first hit which does no visible damage. Blacksmith swings and misses. Blacksmith climbs on top of Shatter and gets what sounds like a pretty good shot; couldn’t see where. Blacksmith cooks away with the flamethrower, to negligible effect. Shatter tees off again: glancing blow, complete miss, glancing blow. A Team Shatter builder shouts “Issaw yeh gawlah? Cubbon!”, which I’m guessing means something. Something on Blacksmith has come loose, and Shatter immediately capitalizes by flailing away at nothing. Blacksmith’s spinning disk has stopped spinning, but it continues defiantly cranking that flamethrower. Shatter racks up hit after miss after miss, which have about as much effect as a slingshot on an aircraft carrier. Seriously, I’m not seeing a single dent anywhere. Blacksmith tries to do a reasonable approximation of fighting back by shoving Shatter into the screws a couple times.
Time. (Finally.) Shatter takes it by the score of “plenty of silly-looking ineffectual offense” to “very little silly-looking ineffectual offense”. Well, the fans wanted to see which was better and they got their answer, which is the grand total of the good to come of this match. It feels really weird to think that Shatter is almost guaranteed to make the tournament now.
First-timer Jager is two bots, one with a small saw and another with a small horizontal bar (plus a minibot, which actually doesn’t look so meager against two half-size mains). Multi-machines have had a pretty poor track record here, mainly because it’s just really damn hard to coordinate two attackers at the same time, and once the full-sized opponent takes out one, the other is a lame duck. P1 should prove to be a good initiation, as it’s not impressive offensively but can outlast weak opponents.
And…we go right to the match without an intro. Say what you will about this shows production, when they really need to save time, they don’t hesitate. 
Jager vs. P1 (1-0)
P1 heads straight for the minibot, ramming it out of the way, but it recovers quickly and plows into P1 from behind, lifting it slightly…and P1 can’t move! The tires are spinning but not gaining any purchase! Killer free shot coming up! The saw comes down, drawing some sparks from the right rear. Then the bar spinner gets a piece, smashing the left rear. This sends P1 spinning off but also frees it, and it’s still in good shape…going for the tires would’ve been a much better idea. The minibot’s left wheel is toast, reducing it to “crab walking”, so it’s out of the picture. P1 goes for the sawer and activates the flipper, which knocks it over a bit. The spinner rushes in, makes contact with the front, and cleanly flips itself over. Now the sawer is inverted and…damn…unable to run inverted, leaving the spinner faced with a near-impossible comeback. P1 manhandles the spinner…doncha love 125-pound weight advantages? Then…yes…YES!! IT PLACES THE BAR SPINNER ON THE UPPER DECK! THIS IS THE MOSZZZZZZZZZ… (Seriously, could someone explain to me what the hell the upper deck is supposed to even do??) Somehow the spinner slips off the deck and stops the countdown JUST IN THE NICK OF…aaaaand try again, stuck on the rail, the spinner can’t escape a second time, ballgame. Multis are garbage.
In the garage, and the part of the season IS…forks. More and more bots are sporting them, some of then nearly as long as the bot itself. The reason is a massive increase in emphasis on winning the low ground. Attacking low and getting under has become the complete name of the game. (The forks have a bad tendency to get stuck in things, but that’s considered an acceptable tradeoff.) I will say that bots that attack from above, primarily grabbers like Kraken and hammerers like Shatter, have done pretty poorly, but at the moment that’s as much as I’m willing to say about the subject.
Jake Ewert is against the ropes after Hydra’s drubbing by End Game, and it doesn’t get any easier for him against the fierce fire forker Gruff. Gruff is one of those tanks that’s super-tough to knock out but not all that fearsome on the offensive end. Taking control and keeping it is going to be the key.
Hydra (0-1) vs. Gruff (1-0)
They meet in the center and do a lot of shuffling, Gruff’s flamethrower scorching away. Hydra throws the flipper three times and catches air each time. Something small and rectangular is on the floor. Hydra manages to lift Gruff slightly…here it comes!..and Gruff tips over and quickly rights. Another flip that knocks Gruff around, and another, and another. It quickly rights each time but can’t seem to find any counterpunch. Now it’s backed against the upper deck, and we’ll find out one of these days, I guess. Not today, though, as it takes a hit from the water screw and escapes to the side. And now flames are emanating from Gruff’s body. That’s the other other other disadvantage of fire weapons: If the mechanism gets dinged up the wrong way, you end up self-immolating. Another shot which puts Gruff on the screws, and it’s struggling now. Hydra’s flips aren’t powerful, but they’re doing the job of keeping Gruff off the attack, and combined with its constant mis-fire-ing, it looks like an easy decis…
What the… Hydra just flipped it out of the Battlebox! I didn’t think that was even possible anymore! It turns out that the outside area is a lot smaller but still there, and that’s where Gruff’s torturous journey finally comes to an end. Team Hydra still has issues to work out, but that was a nice springback after an embarrassing season opener loss.
On to the technically least interesting match of the day between the resident full body spinners, Gigabyte and Captain Shrederator. Again, there’s really only one thing an FBS can do, meaning that a fight against their own kind is essentially a drinking contest. If it ends up in either short corner, there’s the potential for some spectacular pinballing, but I think both drivers have the sense to give them a wide berth. Edge to Gigabyte based on proven track record, of course.
Abrahamson on spin direction and how it will affect the fight.
Gigabyte (0-1) vs. Captain Shrederator (1-0)
They take a few seconds to reach full speed then get ready for the inevitable. Hit 1; CS knocked back a bit, Gigabyte takes a little hop. Hit 2, glancing contact. Hit 3, Gigabyte gets thrown way back, dangerously close to the wall. Hit 4, love tap. Hit 5, CS gets sent back and makes minor contact with a screw.
And then CS slows to a halt, fight over. Geez, didn’t think it’d be that quick. 
Man, CS driver Brian Nabe is crushed. “Another unbelievable, un…that’s the worst thing that could happen. Unexplainable death, just like everyone expects.”
Some words with Team Gigabyte which are so goddam supremely awkward that I actually welcomed the rare loser’s interview. Nabe freely confesses the problem, the telemetry (the electronic mechanism on CS which allowed it to receive signals from the controller) failed, and air resistance quickly took care of the rest. It’s an old story, and the frustration is clearly wearing on him.
Preview of Witch Doctor and End Game. Expect fireworks.
On to the semi-main, newcomer Dragon Slayer against Duck. There are two very simple ways to beat Duck: 1. Knock it around without crapping out for three minutes, or 2. Launch it someplace it can’t come back from. DS is another mid-mounted thick bar spinner, so it looks well-equipped to do either. Duck now makes quacking noises, which is a definitely a thing worth spending money and weight allowance on.
Dragon Slayer vs. Duck (0-1)
They approach in the middle and stutter step. DS commits and carves off a chunk off Duck’s wedge. Then another chunk. Duck somehow is able to fire back, shoving DS against the wall. Duck briefly keeps the spinner at bay, but DS shifts left, gets under, and…lockup, the spinner jammed against Duck’s body. It remains like that for a while. Duck breaks off, and DS responds by eating a clown hammer shot. 
(Just because the hazards aren’t that effective doesn’t mean you should mindlessly run into them! It’s a fine line between courage and masochism!) DS gets back in gear, and there’s a bunch of jousting. Another piece comes off of Duck’s wedge. The problem with the break-fist-face method is that three minutes isn’t a whole lot of time to make it work, and Duck now has a lot of catching up to do with slightly over half the match remaining. A bit of smoke from DS, but it quickly passes. That’s the other thing: Without any real offensive option, Duck can’t exploit these moments of vulnerability, so the opponent always has time to recover. With time winding down, Duck is getting manhandled (birdhandled?), while DS’s weapon is still humming along. It’s like that as the final seconds tick away. Hal Rucker’s strategy is a complete failure…again…and Jordan Neil kicks off his Battlebots career with a decisive victory. Nice going! 
Witch Doctor steps up for a very brutal test against End Game in the main event. Abrahamson explains that the longer frame on Witch Doctor is to accommodate a backup motor and belt. The Galatelys are something of trend-defiers; they refuse to put forks in the front, trusting on their sturdy panels to take punishment.
End Game (1-0) vs. Witch Doctor (1-0)
WD begins by circling around its foe, waiting, looking for the right angle. And then failing to find any and going for weppers. 
WD gets backed to the wall, and has to escape, but EG’s already taken a beating, two of the forks pointed uselessly upward. (Note to future designers: “Bend don’t break” is a viable strategy only if it doesn’t stay bent. Otherwise you’re just delaying the inevitable.) Another wepper. WD dashes in again and takes a bite out of the wedges. EG catches WD’s right front and sparks fly. WD bounces off the wall and EG backs off, not wanting to turn this into a brute-force duel. Then the first break for EG, a wepper which flips WD backwards. WD rights but with its weapon facing the wrong way, and it gets nailed from behind. EG continues pressing the attack, knocking WD backwards into the short corner…and…a panel just flew off of WD.
And that’ll do it! 
WD is inverted and its righter just stopped working. EG beats one of its toughest rivals in resounding fashion. It is going to be damn hard to beat this season!
Interviews (Two losers in one day? Wow…) don’t say anything we don’t know, so that’s it for this episode. Dang, I never thought I’d be saying is, but I want to see jokes like Sm#e# and Slap Box and Grabot. There’s a lot of sameness in the machine types, and it’d be nice to have some color for a change.
As it was in ’20, day 6 of the ’21 season is all second matches. The theme for today appears to be “separating the chaff from the badly rotted chaff”, as a considerable majority of the competitors lost their openers in ugly fashion. Three matches pit loser against loser, apparently meant to give a ray of hope to a few underdogs at the cost of crushing the aspirations of teams that really shouldn’t have had much to begin with.
For the record, the broadcast began with Florian cracking an alleged joke about losing a fight to a vacuum cleaner, which the crowd did not respond to with either loud groans or numb silence. This reinforces a longstanding believe I’ve had that reality TV audiences are required to act incredibly stupid. If this is comparable to the WWE, it looks like I jumped ship just in time. (By which I mean the early 90’s. Yes, it was that bad.)
PRELIMS DAY 6 2/10/22
First up is the only winner-winner match of the day, Rotator vs. Black Dragon. Both are capable of beating almost anybody, so it’s going to be a simple matter of which machine can assert itself.
Two members of Team Rotator do a cool spinning-lights illusion, while Black Dragon comes out…with…a stuffed duck on it, probably in an effort to draw comparisons to Duck. Yeah, if “entrance battles” were a thing…well, geez, maybe they should be a thing. Showmanship is a part of reality TV. Heck, you seen Shark Tank lately?
Abrahamson mentions that Team Rotator had bad lithium batteries this morning…puffed up…and had to borrow some from Team Malice. Nice to see teams supporting each other. (Provided that it’s a two-way street…I talked about yaocho before, didn’t I?)
Rotator (1-0) vs. Black Dragon (1-0)
Rotator starts by getting under BD and its fire, carrying it to the wall. No damage. The clown hammer gets in on the action, and, yeah, still no damage. 
The first hit, cutter to wedge, which sends both bots spinning. Rotator attacks with the wedges, to little effect, and there’s a glancing shot. More chips, more little weightlifting. BD’s eggbeater is set a little behind the wedge and hasn’t been able to find anything on Rotator. A bit of indecision from both drivers. Finally BD goes on the offensive, taking a few bites…uh oh, I definitely see something orange and glowy in the spinner housing. Worse, the spinner looks misaligned, drawing a ton of sparks on the right side. And the flamethrower is out. Aaaaaand, it’s smoking now. Rotator lunges in and gets briefly side-wheeled. Another big mutual spin-away, and that just took out BD’s weapon. I know destruction is the name of the game, but seeing these slow death spirals is always so tough to watch. All the smoke makes it a challenge to see how the rest of the match went; suffice to say that chasing was a large part of the equation. Time runs out, and as Rotator is still fully functional and cool as a cucumber, there’s no doubt as to the winner.
Tip of the hat to Victor Soto, who’s completely dropped his victim mentality and won both of his first two prelims for the first time ever. He’s fighting smart and finding the path to victory, and that’s worth a lot in my book.
Now two bots that were horrendous in their openers but for much different reasons. Whoever loses this is most likely dead machine walking.
Lucky (0-1) vs. Blade (0-1)
Blade looks like it’s going to engage, backs into the corner, and…hits the wall, breaking a big piece of the blade off. It spins back, going completely over Lucky…and…it’s incredibly wobbly. Matt Olson, who has the absolutely burning desire to do something this match (can’t really blame him, honestly), shoves Blade against a screw, then…flip!..and Blade is stranded helplessly on top the wall. Holy crap, that bot is abysmal.
Next up is a “how good they really are” matchup between a machine that suffered a breakdown against a top level machine and one that avoided a breakdown against a largely useless lump. Naturally, there’s only one proper way to hype this up…an ACCEPTABLE STORY! Minotaur driver Daniel Freitas learned two weeks ago that his mother was in the hospital with Covid. And…oh, crap. He lost his mother and grandmother on the same day. Damn, that one’s acceptable enough to stay fresh for two more seasons! Over-under at how many more seasons we will hear about it is around five!
Wait…did Florian just say that Freitas wants to win that belt? Um, I think you got the wrong sport here, bud.
Minotaur (0-1) vs. Dragon Slayer (1-0)
DS evades Minotaur’s initial charge in a feeble attempt to convince us that there won’t be weppers, and yep, what did I tell ya. They chip away at each other, which gets DS inverted; it pops right back over. Then a head-on collision which knocks DS’s weapon out of commission, and against a fully-operational Minotaur, that’s the kiss of death. Freitas wastes no time sticking in the coffin nail, battering his helpless foe senseless before hanging it out to dry on the wall.
Team Minotaur is really emotional about Freitas’ recent tragedy, which only makes their Brazilian accents even harder to understand. Moving on because I’m bored.
Team Pain Train is now well into the “Is there anyone at all they can beat?” stage of their careers. Today they face a hopefully managable opponent, the wide-drummed Yeti.
Yeti (0-1) vs. Pain Train (0-1)
PT kicks things off by running into the wall. Lots of juking before PT takes a glancing shot at Yeti’s right. Two more hits connect and rattle Yeti. A little wepper and PT backs off; they wisely do not want to go toe-to-toe against anybody. Yeti lifts PT up and…goes completely under it. A friendly reminder that “winning the ground game” only helps if you actually make something out of it. More maneuvering and a blow to Yeti’s left front. A wepper follows, and a second wepper. Yeti counterattacks with a shot to PT’s flank which sends it tumbling…and…crap. A panel just fell off of it. Followed by a piece from the rear. Now it looks like the right wheel is almost dead. Did I say what an utter pile of junk it was before? Yeti, seeking to close the deal, attacks the exposed right flank. The ref barks “controlled movement” as Yeti pours on more damage. PT gets thrown across the box, and now PT has lost some batteries, and that right wheel is completely toast. Yeti backs off, job well done, as hope runs out for PT yet again. Seriously,
Kraken is another one of those “unkillable” bots that everyone has to beat by decision. The problem is that eventually they become okay with that, and well, then it feels Connor McGregor’s pain. Hijinx just looks really weak to me. Fan-style spinners seem to be the “glass cannon” of Battlebots; they can deliver big hits but also break easily. They key is staying operational long enough so it has the advantage when the fight reaches the pusha-pusha stage, and thus far it’s been unable to do so. Tough to pick a winner here (not that I’d ever be so arrogant).
Kraken (0-1) vs. Hijinx (0-1)
Hijinx begins by slowly shifting to the left, which doesn’t do a thing to prevent Kraken from rushing in and getting smashed back. Hijinx is having trouble rediscovering its motivation, and Kraken capitalizes by dumping it on the screws. Hijinx manages to wrestle free and get spun up again. Two shots rattle the teeth, but they remain intact. A low-speed hit connects, and I just saw a bit of metal hit the floor. Kraken drags Hijinx around a bit then drops it. Driver Matt Spurk loudly demands a count, and not cool, buddy. Hijinx is spun up but not showing controlled movement…and it just lunged forward, and that just went from “not cool” to “major blunder”. Hijinx grinds away at the inside of Kraken, carving something else loose. It doesn’t have the horsepower to do much damage, but unless Kraken can start actually doing something, it’s not going to matter. Rose, in a vanishingly rare moment of usefulness, points out that because Hijinx is inverted, the controls are effectively reversed for Orion Beech, and it’s been like that for a while.
Finally, signs of life for Kraken! It rushes in, wrestles Hijinx to the edge of the upper deck…and…puts it on top! Spurk gives a shout of joy! Hijinx is stuck…for about three seconds, and then it plops harmlessly back down. (Anyone not see that coming?) Kraken loses more sheet metal, and now it’s looking clumsy on the floor. And the downward spiral (damn… 
) continues as Kraken loses it’s right fang. And now its right wheel is toast. Thankfully just then the 10 second mark comes up on the screen, meaning this death march is nearly done. Hijinx yooner, of course. Beech claims what’s undoubtedly the hardest-fought curbstomp of his life.
A rare treat; we actually get to see the judges’ scorecards! In a nutshell, Hijinx dominated damage, whereas Kraken was ahead on both control and aggression but not significantly. In the end it was a bit close, 6-5 across the board, but there was never much doubt that Hijinx would prevail.
Gah. Bad, bad look for Spurk. Look, no matter what sport it is, there is an ironclad rule: Don’t give the ref attitude. That has the potential to mess up an entire career big time. The bottom line is that right now his machine simply can’t do what it takes to win, and he needs to fix that…and soon…before he ends up completely in the cellar.
Preview of Hypershock and Lock-jaw. I completely agree with Donald Hutson, two championships isn’t enough…one is plenty sufficient. (Incidentally, they were for the Superheavyweight division on the old league, well before the reality TV-ified only-one-prize-allowed-ever “modern era”.)
Semi-main! Ethan Kurtz is having the time of his life after putting away Huge, and he’ll very likely be even happier after demolishing whatever the hell Defender is supposed to do! (I’m sorry, but sometimes they’re just that predictable.)
Defender (0-1) vs. Riptide (1-0)
Defender shows its multitudinal mastery of offense nullifying tactics by running straight into Riptide. Twice. A third bit collision sends both of them flying and landing inverted. Defender manages to right with some difficulty, while Riptide has no righter but can move inverted. It tries to get the rubber side back down by…running into a wall…and it lands on its side! And it’s immobile! Man, that has to be one of the most mortifying self-owns ever! Did no one learn anything from Malice’s woes in ’20? This should be a law: Make sure that your bot does not have a position where it’s completely helpless! Man, that has to be…
…and Defender just pushed it down, allowing it to move again.
OKAY, TIME OUT - Once more, with feeling: AAAARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHH!!!
Must…keep…going… Riptide, after a bunch of aimless stumbling, does as masochistic sky-high flip which, remarkably, does the job of getting it righted. Riptide’s weapon loses most of its power soon after, and the rest of the match is the usual sloppy drunken brawl where the machines do more damage to the floor than their opponent.
Never have I been happier to see a match end. Keep in mind that the damage score takes all damage into account, including self-inflicted, so it’s not looking too good for Riptide. It’s a yooner, and it’s Defender. Congrats, Jason Vasquez, you don’t walk away winless. Consider yourself very lucky.
Abrahamson gives the edge to Hypershock over Lock-jaw ‘cause why not.
Main event - Hypershock (1-0) vs. Lock-jaw (0-1)
The bots paw at each other. Hypershock bounces off a screw, then knocks Lock-jaw into the screw. Wepper; lots of sparks. They get tangled…uh oh. Hypershock’s left front tire is mangled. Lock-jaw responds by running away and getting nailed from behind for its trouble. Hypershock roughhouses with its opponent, and now there’s some stuff on the floor. There’s another clash…and Hypershock’s right front tire just came off. But Lock-Jaw also lost its right front tire! Is this going to be like Bloodstorm, the loser is whoever runs out of body parts first? (Oh, look it up, I’m tired… ) Hypershock smashes Lock-jaw into the corner, and I definitely saw metal come off.
And there’s the coup the grace: Lock-jaw turns its back again, and Hypershock sends it flying, this time into that little outta-da-ring space. No recovery from there.
Goddammit. What the hell did Donald Hutson do to deserve this? I hate it when this happens, a strong contender that never gets the chance to show how good he really is because he gets thrown against destroyer after crusher after monster after demigod, always the cream of the cream of the cream, not once even so much as midcarder. That’s two main events in a row! Two! I couldn’t stand this crap when it was Big Dog Ninjas in Ninja vs. Ninja (yes, I do have long memories in very specific respects), and in an event as bottom- and middle-heavy as this, it’s outrageous. And this after a reasonable draw in Bounty Hunters Beta?? I don’t understand anything anymore.
Got places to go this holiday weekend, so I’m turning this in early.
PRELIMS DAY 7 - 2/17/22
And we get off to a flying start when Abrahamson spews out several seconds of obscenities, but thankfully throws in the caveat that he should not have said it! And really drives it home by laughing for about two minutes!
OKAY, TIME OUT - No. No, no, no, no, no. This isn’t Hell’s Kitchen. There’s a big crowd watching. You know this. Watch your goddam language. If there’s something you shouldn’t say, the proper course of action is to NOT SAY IT. If you say it and say you shouldn’t have said it, that’s just makes you a foulmouthed jerk twice over. BTW, nice job on completely flushing away 6 episodes’ worth of goodwill in the span of 5 seconds, not including all the laughing, so it should be a foulmouthed jerk three times over.
I am officially done wasting keystrokes on you, you gutter trash lowlife bum. Go to hell.
The first three matches are loser against loser, with the winner most likely going being the one who looked like the lesser loser. In the case of Bloodsport vs. SubZero, I definitely give the edge to the former, but with its questionable durability, nothing should be considered an easy opponent.
Bloodsport (0-1) vs. SubZero (0-1)
Bloodsport gives a glancing shot en passant, then another to the wedge. SubZero gets on the attack and tosses its foe back. Bloodsport fires back with a shot to the side and two more to the front wedge. It’s drawing a lot of sparks but not doing visible damage, so it needs to keep the pressure on. It strays into the short corner and desperately powers out, taking some air. SubZero flips and misses. Two more wedge hits are met with flips that get only air. Finally it connects…a nice looking jump, nothing more. SubZero isn’t banged up but slowing down. A bit of something falls off Bloodsport; I’m thinking it should seal the deal now. SubZero is now sporting some big dents and is really sluggish. At the 1:30 mark, it starts smoking, and that should just about do it. The left rear wheel has been knocked out of alignment, killing whatever mobility it had left. And a shot to the right which knocks off the right rear wheel. Bloodsport gets the stoppage, but a quality spinner would’ve put SubZero out of its misery much sooner.
Ah, Ghost Raptor. You may recall that Chuck Pinzer helped Team Glitch get their bot ready because he wanted the fight so much, and when he had Glitch completely dead to rights he completely threw the match away, because that’s the sort of thing a driver is apparently supposed to do here. Apparently “karma” means getting a softball second opponent in Cobalt, which was hapless against Fusion. Something’s gotta give!
Cobalt (0-1) vs. Ghost Raptor (0-1)
GR gets the early offensive on account of its weapon actually able to reach its opponent. Cobalt lunges in and knocks GR back. Cobalt gets two nice hits but is briefly stuck on the screws. Pinzer, with a free shot at its back, does nothing as Cobalt breaks free…then GR turns around and eats another shot. They’re in the short corner, and Cobalt smothers away, getting GR inverted. Cobalt shoves GR all the way to the wall, big hit, and GR is lying in a messy heap. I’m getting flashbacks to really bad Dan Hibiki stories.
Seriously getting tired of all this break-fist-face blather.
Rounding out the somebody’s-gotta-win-for-some-reason portion of the show are Icewave and Deadlift. Hard to say how this will go, as both are firmly in “pray really hard nothing blows up” territory. Deadlift’s driver seems to have the right idea, at least (flip Icewave over and let the fun begin).
Icewave (0-1) vs. Deadlift (0-1)
Quick maneuvering to begin. Icewave spins up and gets a couple hits that don’t have much effect. Deadlift roasts away and makes lots of pretty yellow light. There’s another collision. And Deadlift is dead. Man, that thing is dreadful. On the positive side (and I’m just about dying for some positivity right now), this is Mark DeVidts’ first win in three years, which means we he won’t have to hear about it anymore.
Bit of self-indulgent faffery with Cobalt driver Matt Maxim, who is way too full of himself after taking apart Ghost Raptor, making it a lead pipe cinch it’s going to be a major downhill tumble for the remainder of ’21, and possibly his entire career.
On to Blip, our first winner of the night, with the big caveat that it was against Rusty, and the road isn’t much more grueling against the strictly club-tier Overhaul.
Blip (1-0) vs. Overhaul (0-1)
Blip clips Overhaul as they pass. Overhaul knocks Blip over, and there’s a bit of wrestling before Overhaul puts Blip against the wall. Nothing comes of it, and they juke away in the middle of the box. Blip tries the familiar bum-rush-slam move, which doesn’t strike me as a good option for a small flipper, and I’m proven right as it loses the handle well before Overhaul reaches the wall. They’re scrambling for position in the short corner, and Blip is the “winner” as it flips Overhaul a truly depressing height. All is not lost, however, because Overhaul just lost it’s right rear tire, which could be the only significant damage we see this match. Another flip, and it got all of that one…no damage. Another flip which doesn’t…aw, geez, a little fire has broken out in Overhaul. Blip immediately capitalizes by inverting itself and needing three attempts to get righted. Finally Overhaul ends up on its compromised left side and the match ends, but not before Blip does more damage to itself. Learning process…learning process.
In an early nominee for Best Refusal to Indulge in Idiocy Award for this season, Florian asks Blip driver Aren Hill if Blip is a better flipper than Hydra, which generates the predictable irritating noise from the crowd. Hill says something about there being four flippers and two spinners. Florian says “You didn’t answer my question.”, to which Hill responds “Just because you’re a reckless flailing idiot doesn’t mean I have to be.” Or something. A rare moment of good judgment in one of these eternally soul-numbing segments; it’s going to be tough to beat.
Huge! Retrograde! May the better machine win! Because I certainly have no idea which one it is!
(Nobody wants to become a stepping stone, Florian. But then, you already learned that lesson, didn’t you? )
Huge (0-1) vs. Retrograde (1-0)
Retrograde moves in, backs out, moves in again, backs out again. More passes, and still no contact. Finally Retrograde pushes on the right wheel. Huge gets its spinner in position and knocks Retrograde over. Retrograde quickly rights, but…
BAM
A panel just got forcibly detached from Retrograde, which also set something on fire in it, and any chance of it winning this match just landed in the scrap pile. Count begins and Huge has it, but not before it climbs up to the upper deck because that’s something it’s capable of doing. Actually, you know what…this might be a smart move. I haven’t seen another bot that can easily reach the upper deck; now that Huge demonstrated that it can, this could potentially give it a tactical advantage. I’ll definitely have a keen eye on its third match.
The semi-main is one of our two winner-winner matches today, Copperhead and Fusion. Expect at least a decent number of heavy hits!
Team Copperhead goes over their strategy. If someone ever claimed my machine had a “classic fire scenario”, I’d be pretty miffed.
Copperhead (1-0) vs. Fusion (1-0)
Fusion begins with the drum end. Wepper which knocks off a bit of metal. The spinner end seems to be having trouble finding its motivation. Copperhead lands a shot to Fusion’s side which sends it spinning. Uh oh, looks like that killed the drum. Same problem as a multi-bot: If the opponent neutralizes one half, the other fights at a serious disadvantage, and soon you’re left with nothing. Copperhead grinds away at Fusion’s rear, and it’s having major trouble escaping or countering. Copperhead relentlessly presses the attack. And there it is, the horizontal spinner sputters to a halt, and it’s all over but the shouting. And by “shouting” I mean Copperhead delivering a massive hit which sends Fusion flying…I honestly didn’t think it had that kind of power! Incredibly enough the left wheel still works, but a bot can’t escape the count by running in circles.
Well, it’s been a largely unimpressive night, but we now have a trivia note I find kind of interesting. The red side bot (the one on the left side of the card and announced first) has won all six matches, and all have been stoppages. Now Whiplash has the chance to complete an extraordinarily rare southpaw supremacy/easy paycheck for the judges double sweep. The chances look pretty good, too, as it has plenty of staying power and is facing the capable but far from impressive Skorpios. Sure, Skorpios won a Bounty Hunters, but all its opponents in that one were scrubs. It’s not going to have such an easy time against last season’s runner-up.
Oh boy. Zach Lytle boasted about how powerful his weapon is…two times, four times, eight times this-‘n-that. And now he just said “Gotta go through me.” That’s usually exactly what happens. Don’t tempt fate.
And Whiplash is sporting…a lifter arm? Huh. Interesting strategy. Let’s see if this is the one IS that succeeds.
Main event - Whiplash (1-0) vs. Skorpios (1-0)
They rush each other and get tied up. Whiplash wins the oshi duel and puts Skorpios on the screws, getting it stuck momentarily. The screws reverse, but Whiplash dumps it right back on. Skorpios struggles badly for several seconds, then manages to escape to level ground…and gets wrapped up in Whiplash in a bad angle. Skorpios somehow slips out and flees to open floor. And…I’m not sure what happened; Whiplash appears to hit nothing and get shunted about a foot to the left. There’s a bit of debris on the floor. Skorpios swings away with its saw but can’t find purchase. Then it lunges ahead and puts Whiplash in the screws. Lytle bleats something about medicine, which I’m probably going to need tonight. Another upend by Whiplash. So far damage has been negligible and Skorpios has the short end of the other two metrics; it needs to find a way. Some more running around. Whiplash ties up Skorpios and takes it on a spiral dance. Then FINALLY! SKORPIOS CATCHES WHIPLASH’S BACK! THE SAW IS ABOUT TO DROP! THE SAW…kind of feebly grazes Whiplash a bit. Yeah, real powerful. It’s running slowly and intermittently, killing its usefulness as a weapon. Skorpios runs Whiplash all the way to the wall but runs up on Whiplash’s forks and gets upended. And some more aggressive cuddling.
And, inevitably, it ends. Damage looks like a scoreless tie…I really have to question Vasquez’s weapon choice…so it comes down to which bot was the better gladiator, by which I mean failed to kill its opponent in a more entertaining manner. I give a slight edge to Whiplash, but you can bet no one in that camp is relaxed. For the first time I can remember, we’re introduced to the judges and scoring system after the end of the final match. Splitter, of course. Lisa Winter, Skorpios. Derek Young, Whiplash. Jason Bardis…wait for it…Whiplash! Ruby romps and rules the roost radically something something Scooby Doo!
Day 7. It happened. More or less. Hope things pick up with the third matches. I want to see End Game demolish something.
Thanks yet again for your BB posts. Saturdays aren’t saturdays without your SDMB posts.
As it is, it takes me a few days of watching to catch up on all the BB action, about hours worth, I record on my DVR, since I work Thursday evenings, and was looking forward to your take on the action as I was viewing the action.
I must have missed the Abrahamson “incident” because I might have been too aggressive with the fast forwarding at that moment to catch it. Normally, I do like to hear the “Bot Whisperer’s” input as he’s generally pretty damned accurate in his predictions.
This time, it seemed the best action was on the re-run episodes shown, rather than the main event. Pretty thin on the decisive battles that sound like a cacophony of car wrecks with 250 LB robots being mangled as they’re being bashed/shredded/tossed violently spinning/smoking/flaming that I’m so bloodthirsty for. 
That said, I did enjoy the matches with ‘Bloodsport’ and with ‘Huge’. Especially I’m impressed with ‘Huge’, a robot that I heretofore put in the “a stopped clock is right twice a day” category. Not only did the rotating blade mete out ‘Tombstone’ style of carnage, but the all too often vulnerable wheels were quite rugged. I was impressed. Ordinarily I might be inclined to dismiss 'Huge’s climb to the upper deck as a gimmick, but I believe they pulled off a pretty good demonstration as to it’s tractability. Stepping on the rotating screws no less and using them as a “step”. I’m eager to see more of that robot in action, going forward.
Reminds me of a James Bond getaway from the movie ‘Live and Let Die’, where he escapes a swampy pen full of alligators by adroitly using the backs of the alligators as stepping stones.
Too late for an edit. Second paragraph should say “about eight hours worth”.
I really didn’t want to go through that again, but here goes.
Florian: For more on Logan’s opponent tonight, we bring in the third member of our broadcast team, the Bot Whisperer, Pete Abrahamson. Pete, whaddya got on Bloodsport’s weapon choice?
Abrahamson: Well, what I got is they decided to go back to their OG blade. It creates a lot more engagement and gives them a much harder hit, but what’s really been important is over the past couple of days, they’ve been in the test box over ten times, really trying to work out any of the bugs they were having. And so, they are ready to knock [BEEEEEEEEP]. I probably shouldn’t have said that. AHHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA! 
() ().
And I didn’t mention this earlier, but later (don’t recall exactly when, not up to digging it up) he had some fun, ahem, roleplaying with a face shot one of the teams brought to the box.
The man is Russian Roulette. Maybe he didn’t use to be, but he absolutely is now. The only thing worse on reality TV than a lowlife cretin, who’s at least predictable, is an intermittent lowlife cretin. You know exactly what you’re getting with Tyra Banks, Howie Mandell, Blake Shelton, or those Holey Moley pukes (is that one still on?). Abrahamson shows his brains one moment and his anus the next. I dealt with those kind of people all the time growing up, and they made my childhood a living hell (well, besides the 3,000 other things that made my childhood a living hell). I’m done giving him the time of day. You want to, go right ahead.
Anyway, I didn’t want to spend a lot of time on the latest recap because, and I hate to say this, it’s been a little boring the past couple of weeks. There just aren’t that many machines that can give a good fight. Pretty much every time you see something like Pain Train, Kraken, or Ghost Raptor, it’s going to be a letdown one way or the other. And unlike American Ninja Warrior Junior, Battlebots isn’t going to hotshot Uppercut/End Game for no good reason. Losing a bar-setter like Bite Force hurt a lot more than a lot of us realized. I’m certain the new order will sort itself out eventually, but for now we’re just going to have to endure the slog.
Big day today. Four one-and-one teams for which today could be make or break, and four undefeateds in a pair of who’s-the-real-alpha confrontations. Should be good!
Also, “arena out” is what they’re calling it now, because Virtua Fighter is apparently that big a deal. I know, I’m as surprised as you.
PRELIMS DAY 8 - 2/24/22
We open with the “unkillable” Blacksmith against the eminently killable Malice, which is teetering on the edge with zero wins. Nothing Bunny Soriel has done has worked this season, and all her team can do now is hit hard and pray harder.
Blacksmith (1-1) vs. Malice (0-2)
Malice peppers Blacksmith before delivering a bit shot that knocks it over. It hangs back while Blacksmith lies there…and gets righted. I always think it’s best to stay close and be ready to rush in for a free shot in case the bot can get the rubber side back down. Blacksmith shoots a lot of fire to show that it can shoot a lot of fire. Another shot which sends both bots spinning away. Malice goes right into the back wedge and sends itself skyward; bad look. And Malice snaps off the blade of Blacksmith’s weapon arm! How’s that for damage points? Worse, the flamethrower got either banged up or knocked askew and…stop me if you heard this before…Blacksmith is now cooking itself. A few shots later, the fire has become a full-on inferno, and now all Malice has to do is keep jabbing away until it has the white circle one way or the other. The drivers exchange taunts because that’s exactly what a struggling sport needs. The rest of the fight is reminiscent of that time Royce Gracie tried to beat a powerless old guy without making it too obvious that he’s a powerless old guy. Malice gets tossed a few times but the weapon’s still humming, so I don’t see any criterion that Blacksmith can lay claim to. Tauheed wastes no time stating the obvious: yooner Malice. Still a longshot for the tournament but does have a chance, whereas I think Blacksmith’s hopes just went up in flames.
Brazilian Black Dragon is one of those gatekeeper machines that dominates weaklings and bows down to powerhouses. It shouldn’t have much difficulty dispatching Claw Viper, whose only achievement so far is sending the utterly hapless Pardon My French back to the drawing board. Claw Viper driver Kevin Miczewski is going to try to use the box hazards to help score a knockout, which is a recipe for failure if I’ve ever heard one.
Some prematch macho posturing from the drivers.
Black Dragon (1-1) vs. Claw Viper (1-0)
CV zips right past BD but quickly adjusts. CV very gently lifts and dumps BD so quickly that nobody had time to scream blue murder about any suplex crap. BD’s churns away, but its spinner doesn’t have much torque and loses speed quickly; it has to disengage. It gets spinning again but CV picks it up…and they both do wheelies before CV calmly sets BD back down, which Rose calls a “body slam” for some dumb reason. CV pushes BD to the wall and does the same maneuver, also to no effect. So far plenty of sparks but no appreciable damage. BD spins up and winds in while the driver gives a weird grin. They shove their way into a short corner. BD backs out of the corner…and it looks like CV’s right side drive has gone down. The count starts…CV…grinds to a complete halt. The Brazilians celebrate a highly probable tournament berth clinching.
Little commentary on the new upper deck and short corners. Carefully chosen series of clips which prove whatever point they’re trying to make. I question the utility of analytics in such a niche sport, but whatever makes them happy. And fewer arena outs, which they claim could result in a more destructive tournament.
Sm#e# is here tonight…and…oh gods. It seems that every time I see it, it’s faced with something that’s not powerful or dominant and isn’t going to completely take it to school. Maybe it’ll lose, but it’s not going to be a complete shellacking. Well, consider the bunny slope closed for good, as tonight it has Gigabyte, a bot that can’t not deliver crushing knockouts. It’s a full body spinner, peeps! It has only one mode: destroy! Joe Fabiani’s strategy is to repeatedly shove Gigabyte against the wall and watch it destroy itself. Hoo boy…someone’s getting a subarctic shower tonight.
Sm#e# (1-0) vs. Gigabyte (1-1)
They inch out of the starting blocks…closer…closer…and Gigabyte is on the belt. The middle of Sm#e# shakes like a leaf as it’s knocked back. Oh yeah, totally going to manhandle it into the wall. Not much damage, so Gigabyte goes for the right end; not a lot of damage. More chips to the belt. And the left spinner is down. But it looks like Sm#e# is inching Gigabyte to the wall! Closer…closer…and Gigabyte just knocked it over. Now Sm#e# is in the much more challenging to control inverted position. Lots of little hits to the belt which do negligible damage. And more ineffectual hits. And a few more ineffectual hits. Gigabyte finally loses patience and goes for the functional spinner…WHICH SENDS IT INTO THE WALL! YESSSSS!!! FABIANI’S STRATEGY WORKED!! IT WORKED!! IT WORKED!! IT Gigabyte recovers and spins up again. Guys…it generally takes more than one big hit to completely disable a bot, so if that’s all you got, you’re cooked. And hey, looks like that shot took out the right spinner, meaning that Sm#e# now has no weapon. Way to go! Finally Gigabyte gets the death blow, plowing right into the left box and utterly destroying the tire and axle. The ref immediately starts counting, and I have to surmise that he’s waited a long time for Sm#e# to get crushed like this.
All right, I mentioned this in the Valkyrie vs. Triple Crown website match (“IS THIS THE MOST COMPLICATED BATTLEBOT EVER BUILT?”): Rookies should be matched against other rookies, not turned into punching bags for the big boys. Glitch, you may remember, had its first ever match against Ghost Raptor and would have suffered a humiliating loss except that Chuck Pinzer made an absolutely moronic move. I mean, did the stupidest thing imaginable. I mean, ejected his brain into a dumpster. The reward for that fluke victory is being matched against last year’s #1 seed, which I know because Rose and Florian mentioned this trivia tidbit roughly 10 times tonight. On the face of it, pitting Glitch against a living legend like this seems like abject cruelty. But take a deeper look. Has Hydra really been that good this season? I recall a shellacking against End Game and a nice but hardly spectacular win over an overmatched Gruff.
Dynasties end, empires fall. Nothing is forever. It sounds borderline crazy, but Glitch actually could pull off the upset here.
Hydra (1-1) vs. Glitch (1-0)
Hydra rushes in and hounds Glitch into the corner. Hydra gets set up and does a high, high flip; Glitch lands right on one of its forks, which is immediately taken out of commission, and for good measure its spinner hits the floor and knocks it around. Jake Ewert joyously shouts “Yeck koan po, baby!” (Look, you want to give these a crack, be my guest. Following the action takes enough of my energy as it is.) Hydra is about to go in for a second shot when it checks up for no clear reason. What’s up with machines tripping over nothing? It seems like they’re both having trouble moving around, but Glitch slightly less…and Hydra is smoking. Glitch gets a good shot which knocks Hydra over. The only way for Hydra to right is the same thing it uses to attack. It spins through the air…no dice. A second attempt…and Glitch nails it in midair and knocks off the tip of its flipper! A second hit puts it back on its wheels, but it’s ailing now. They do some infighting. Hydra flips…hitting nothing and getting the flipper stuck…the death knell. Glitch nearly runs into a screw but halts just in time and delivers a parting blast. Hydra’s right side drive is toast, and the count finally comes in. Change is good!
Free Shipping (0-2) vs. Tombstone (1-1)
Hahh…move along, nothing to see here. Gary Jin is a respected veteran whose ’21 outing strongly resembles the swan songs of Dan Marino and Ben Rothlisberger, and here to put the capper on his cavalcade of pain is Ray Billings, whose fighting style can be best described as “sadism”. It’s very obvious what the purpose of this match was (and it had nothing to do with that “rivalry” crap Rose keeps trying to flog). The fight: Tombstone demolishes three tires in seconds but (SMIYHTB) the blade craps out for no clear reason, which means that we’re treated to two and a half minutes of useless futzing around. Ooh, nice push onto the screws! 
Yooner Tombstone, yay, moving on.
Preview of the main event. Much concern about the selection committee.
Ribbot is the Bruce Lee of robot fighting; it looks completely silly, but underestimate it at your peril. P1, on the other hand, got two largely fortuitous wins and still hasn’t convinced me that it’s a contender. And…Ribbot is going with a high-set vertical spinner? Against the flat, boxy P1? Given that it has a variety of weapons (one of the reasons it’s so aggravating to deal with), this strikes me as a tactical error.
P1 loses the cosmetic spoiler before the match even begins, which has me absolutely brimming with confidence.
Ribbot (2-0) vs. P1 (2-0)
Maneuvering. Lots of maneuvering. Lots more maneuvering. Ribbot trips over a saw notch. More maneuvering. Florian gushes over how “methodical” they are, and yes, the announcers do, in fact, just keep getting worse and worse. A little bump. More maneuvering. Finally, the first sparks. P1’s close to the wall; more sparks. Ribbot is chipping away but not doing damage. They wrestle, and P1 pushes Ribbot all the way to the wall. That high vertical spinner is looking like a really bad call. The clown hammer gets into the act, smacking Ribbot and actually bending some stuff a bit, which will completely swing the match if Ribbot does no damage, which…okay, outside chance the way this fight’s been going. Finally a decent shot which spins P1 around. And they get tied up for a while. There’s nothing wrong with winning by decision, but when you’re the favorite you do not want this kind of slow-paced ticky-tack fifty-plus-one duel. The stalemate ends with Ribbot going for the front. And now P1 is having drive problems, and bam, first good hit of the match which upends P1! It quickly rights, but it’s lost its left wheel drive, powerless to avoid a second blow that blasts it onto the upper deck. One way or another that’s how this one’s ending, and with time winding down…the count starts! And it ends ONE!! SECOND!! before we’d have to spend about a minute confirming that the judges still aren’t corrupt!
And there you have it. Ribbot proves once again that it’s no joke and will be a force to be reckoned with in the tournament. P1 is just one of those unfortunates for which there will be no happy ending; either it comes up just short or it makes it in and gets obliterated. Fate can be cruel sometimes.
Documentary bit about repairs. (“Haaspital”. Cute. ) I just had a thought: Could the reason Tombstone and Hydra be struggling so much is that they’ve been banged up so much that their teams just can’t afford the good stuff anymore? I’ve mentioned before how critical the quality of the build matters toward the success of the machine. Maybe in the early days these teams were flush with sponsorship cash and could get the gold standard in anything, but as expenses kept piling up year after year they were forced to cut corners, and as a result a bot which could handle all that power suddenly can’t.
Main event! Sawblaze vs. End Game! Two top favorites in the tournament! The hype is huge! There is much talk about these two teams! Big preview and everything!
Main event - Sawblaze (2-0) vs. End Game (2-0)
They approach. Sawblaze spins around a few times. It turns its back, which is an extremely bad idea as neither its saw nor its forks can attack in that position, and End Game immediately surges forward, shoves it into the wall, and delivers a hit… which… crap. Sawblaze just fell victim to that Uuuhhhhhreeeeenaaaaaahhhhhhh Oooowwwwwtttttt I mentioned at the top of this post. Time of match: 27 seconds. Good goddesses. It looked like Jameson Go came in scared and immediately paid the price.
I mentioned in day 4 that I considered Sawblaze one of the favorites. I still believe that, but now it looks like that’s its ceiling. Unless Go can keep his composure against the titans, he’s looking at a career of quarters-semis exits and no Giant Nuts. As for End Game…what more can anyone say at this point? It’s riding a 10 win streak and hasn’t been in any danger of losing in any of those fights. It’s like they had their one moment of ineptitude against Tombstone all those many months ago, decided they’d had enough right then and there, and everything since has been excelsior. (Thanks to the Internet, I know what that actually means now! )
Oops…Florian said that every match comes with Dire Stakes, not Dire Straits. Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing the bots come out to Twisting By The Pool.
Nine of the machines today go in 1-1, none of which has looked especially great or terrible, so bigtime tournament implications today.
PRELIMS DAY 9 - 3/4/22
Gruff (1-1) vs. Cobalt (1-1)
They meet head-on and Cobalt knocks Gruff over. Gruff briefly gets its forks in the saw notches but manages to free itself. (I think the organizers are going to have to take a hard look at those “kill saws” after this season; this is not how they’re supposed to affect the match.) Gruff rushes in with a burst of flame and gets thrown skyward, and it takes another shot on the way down. Given that Cobalt has to get really close to attack with that center-mounted disk, I think keeping it at arm’s length (especially with Gruff’s long forks) would be a much smarter strategy. Gruff gets caught by the hammer, and Cobalt sends it soaring again. Gruff looks like it’s losing mobility, and Cobalt continues pressing the attack. Cobalt easily catches its foes flank again and delivers two more shots. Cobalt continues working Gruff…and there it is, the Mitsubishi Motors Beginning of the End (Hey, since Ninja vs. Ninja isn’t a thing anymore, they may as well. ); Gruff’s fire-making equipment gets busted and Gruff is immolated. The ref takes a long time to decide Gruff has no more controlled movement, but it’s inevitable. First lesson every team must learn: No matter how tough your bot is, if it just keeps taking hit after hit after hit, it will break. Good win for Team Cobalt; they’ve improved dramatically since that collapse against Fusion.
Duck (0-2) vs. Riptide (1-1)
This has all the earmarks of a “bone throw” match for Duck, which, much like Hydra, is a perennial fan favorite that’s been completely hapless as of late. Riptide is a first-timer, designed primarily for forward-moving offense, and has shown considerable reliability issues in its first two matches. This is the kind of opponent Duck eats for breakfast. The typical result is the opponent whaling away from every angle, doing zippo damage, and falling apart. It’s the epitome of the epically tedious “break your fist on my face” strategy, and it looks like this is exactly what’s going to happen here.
Riptide kicks things off with two glancing shots to Duck’s rear corners. A hit to the rear which lifts it up, and another which flips it over. And lookie here, zero damage. Now a hit to the beak which flips it over again, and another flip. Little scuff on that beak, nothing more. Now… =CRUNCH= a big piece of the beak comes flying off. Well, that’s the risk with such a long weapon. A couple clown hammer baps later, Duck runs to safety. It looks like one of the rear wedgelets has been compromised. Still nothing to wor…
=KABAM=
Duck just lost its right front wheel! I always thought that if you absolutely had to get super-aggressive with Duck, you should go for the wheels, and hardly anybody ever did, or could…and now the rookie just took them all to school. Fusion rushes right back in. Ooh, hitting the sharp right front corner, that’s a great… =BANG= …the corner just came flying off. Ladies and gentleman, the bot that’s “impossible to knock out” is getting its tailfeathers kicked. And guess what, Riptide’s weapon is still cranking at full speed. Duck creeps into the corner and gets some more clown hammer humiliation. Riptide charges in and sends it flying again.
Shot of Team Duck as they watch their machine, their ideology, and their futures crumble to dust in front of their eyes. Duck can do little more than shuffle now. The ref finally runs out of patience. Ten becomes one. It’s over. The empire has fallen. Duck is dinner.
Man. Damning, damning loss. I mentioned before that once opponents learned to be happy with safe, conservative wins, Duck was toast, right? Believe it or not, the reality is worse than that. Ethan Kurtz’s response to this break-fist-face nonsense was to make a better fist. And now Hal Rucker is faced with the ice-cold truth that Duck has been figured out and is never going to be a factor again. Yow.
Valkyrie (1-1) vs. Pardon My French (0-1)
Yeah, it turns out that not all bots get all three matches. No idea what decides this, but it seems that combat readiness…how expediently the team can fix the damage and get the bot ready for the next fight…plays a large factor. In that respect, I can completely understand why PMF got left in the cold…it is in no way, shape, or form ready for prime time. No preview or intro for this one, and this harsh programming decision is completely justified as Valkyrie completely stuffs PMF’s weapon and then quickly stuffs the rest of PMF in 53 seconds. Prochain!
(Goddesses, these postmatch interviews are stuuuuuuupid.)
Lock-jaw (0-2) vs. Blip (2-0)
Hoo boy, some beloved veterans are getting thrashed in '21. I’ll grant that for some reason Donald Hutson’s mean green grinder isn’t at 100% this season, but there is no excuse for throwing him to the damn elephant in both of his first two matches. I could see it for a rampaging juggernaut like Bite Force, but Lock-jaw won a soft Bounty Hunters and…what else, exactly? Meanwhile, Blip is sitting pretty after two of the most unconvincing victories you’ll ever see outside of boxing. I can’t see any purpose or outcome of this match other than “justice”.
Hutson is using a minibot for the first time ever, which is a major breakthrough as it shows that he’s extremely desperate.
Lock-jaw starts off by tripping over nothing, something I’m seeing way too much of this season. They scramble into the short corner. Flip nimbly wedges under and flips; appreciable height. Lock-jaw draws a few sparks and gets upended on its side. And…crap. Lock-jaw upends itself, smokes heavily, and bursts into flames. Friendly reminder that own goals count this season. The fire quickly goes out, but now that weapon is having trouble…and there it goes. Blip tries to toss Lock-jaw onto the upper deck and succeeds. Conventional wisdom says that it should stay there, but Hutson has to make a fight of it and goes back down. Lots of maneuvering. Blip takes a really, really long time to set up its next flip, but it finally arrives, and then a second. Lock-jaw’s spinner comes back to life but at a considerably reduced velocity. Blip, undeterred, continues its pancake assault. And the spinner is down again. In addition to the obvious damage, Blip has manhandled Lock-jaw for the majority of the match, so it has the edge on control as well. The minibot gets into the picture and actually manages to do something, getting Blip high-centered and allowing Lock-jaw to shove it against the wall, but Blip quickly frees itself. Blip smokes a little bit but nothing comes of it. And that’s how this one ends, Blip not having the muscle to finish the job but roughing up its opponent so much that you have to call the match for it. Which, of course, is exactly what happens; easy yooner.
Hutson puts on a good face, using the “support the sport” angle, but you have to believe he’s fuming at his first winless season ever. Even though robot fighting doesn’t require footwork, cardio, or upper body strength, the mental aspect is the same as in any sport, and I have to wonder if the many years in the box are starting to wear on his mind. As for Blip…the Las Vegas Golden Knights, the Jacksonville Jaguars, Mike Tyson, Mark Coleman, you know the drill. The first-timer that experiences nothing but smashing success right out of the gate. The question is how they’re going to take it when, inevitably, the get sent crashing to reality. For now it seems like Aren Hill has the right attitude, but you have to think he’s going to get hit hard in the tournament.
Preview of Skorpios vs. Yeti. Yeti now sports a variable-speed spinner, which hopefully should give it better control.
Minotaur (1-1) vs. Deep Six (1-1)
Hahh…let’s get this over with. Minotaur advances. DS rotates a little. Minotaur attacks and knocks DS completely over. DS’s spinner is against the floor; it manages to rotate and get righted. Minotaur delivers another shot which leaves DS upended against the wall, and it’s smoking and looks like it can’t get off. DS’s driver repeatedly please “Hit me!”, which sounds completely natural and exactly the kind of thing you want to hear from a driver. Minotaur responds by waiting a long time, then taking out the forks. Ref brings this farce to a merciful halt. Deep Six? More like Dignity Zero. Damn.
Documentary piece on the equipment that goes into the sport. Like most sports, the demands have gotten way up from the early years. I’m reminded of stock car racing, how it was essentially a contest for bragging-rights in the bootlegger days and how insanely expensive and structured it is now.
SubZero (0-2) vs. Hijinx (1-1)
And in the semi-main, it’s two bots notorious for early breakdowns. This should be a thrill. SubZero rushes in and takes a couple of small hits. A head-on collision which throws Hijinx upward and causes SubZero to rear up. SubZero is already looking a bit banged up. SubZero eats another hit. It needs to get under its opponent for its weapon to work, which is not good when the opponent has a long horizontal bar as its weapon. It gets a flip!..slight air, no biggie. Hijinx is pinned against the wall, unable to spin. SubZero fires…a complete whiff, and now the flipper is stuck. Yeah, no idea why it got completely owned by Witch Doctor in Bounty Hunters. Now its only chance if it’s able to completely smother Hijinx for the entire remainder of the match and convince the judges that it can’t spin up. What actually happens, of course, is that Hijinx does manage to get away and systematically strip SubZero for badly mangled parts. Then the smoke comes out. It looks to me like the left side drive is done, and the ref agrees. The selection committee is going to have an easier time this season than the last: three bots entered today 0-2 and all were sent straight to the recycle bin.
(2-1 is not “impressive”, Rose. Good gravy, on top of all your other failings, don’t take after Matt Iseman. )
Main event - Skorpios (1-1) vs. Yeti (1-1)
Both of their wins were against the dregs of the sport; they need to really perform here to merit serious consideration for the tournament. A few chippy hits to begin. Skorpios lowers the saw and can’t quite reach. Yeti plows Skorpios into the wall, knocking down the Battlebots sign. Skorpios nearly takes a shot to the wheel, then gets sent tumbling skyward. Another big spin job. Wepper which doesn’t do much. Somewhere a light goes down. Skorpios isn’t too banged up but it’s taking a lot more than it’s giving. Yeti’s left front tire has taken damage but it’s still agile. Yeti continues churning away; like a lot of bots, it doesn’t have knockout power, but it can really make life difficult for its opponent with constant hounding. Skorpios gets tossed around, then again, and it’s on the screws…which reverse, as they’re supposed to.
Oh dear. Yeti’s drummer has stopped. Meanwhile Skorpios’ saw (which has seen very little action this match) is still all clear. Now it’s a race against time to even the score. All Yeti can do is continue attacking with its forks, keeping Skorpios off balance and preventing it from landing a crusher. And…it seems to be working! Skorpios looks confused, not knowing where to strike. Yeti gets hung up on the upper deck screws but only for a moment. Skorpios finally gets a clean shot on Yeti’s body…which doesn’t even scratch it. Did I mention how weak that weapon is?
Time! I give actually give Skorpios a slight edge on damage, but given how long it got dominated, I’m just not seeing a win here. Splitter, like I even need to tell you. Young - Skorpios. Winters - Yeti. Bardis…man, Tauheed dragged this one out for a while…Yeti! Granted, it’s not a great machine and is going to struggle in the tournament, but it should be an entertaining struggle.
On to the regular season finale! Jackpot, Tantrum, Uppercut, Shatter, Rotator, Hypershock, Copperhead, Whiplash, and Glitch are on top of the heap of mangled metal at 2-0; who will make a case for a top seed? Will we get another battle of the giants between Huge and Mammoth? Will Rusty ever see the light of day again? Don’t touch that DVR box power button!
Thanks for the write-up. I think from here forward I’ll delay watching my recorded BB episode(s) until I’ve read your descriptions first. Makes it more interesting.
On a related note, It sure was nice to see ‘Witch Doctor’ back on its “A Game” after a run of bad luck/reliability issues and make such short work of ‘SubZero’ in such a spectacular fashion on ‘Bounty Hunters’.
I’m also felling really sorry for the ‘Duck’ team/family. They really need to reinvent their robot in a way that includes at least some offensive weaponry.
Looking back at some older reruns I have to ask myself: Has ‘Beta’ ever actually won a match that involved anything other than luck? More to the point; has that vaunted hammer of theirs ever acquitted itself well enough to the extent its offensive use caused direct damage to its opponent?
Yeah. In the show I saw last week, Duck didn’t stand a chance. It might have been a contender twenty years ago, but now, it isn’t. Its design team needs to go back to the drawing board and come up with something different and new that has more offensive capability.
Brickbat - Hey, no problem. I enjoy it. Just fair warning, I’ll rarely be done by Friday, as I’m usually really fatigued by work by then.
As soon as all the old seasons become available on DVD, I can come up with some kind of analysis of Beta. Until then, all I got is speculation. After seeing Shatter in action as well, I’m convinced that a swinging hammer just isn’t a very effective design.
It’s the end of prelims, when the tournament field gets finalized. I always like this episode, mainly because the time needed to roll out the bracket means there’s less time for banal postmatch interviews and general idiocy from Rose and Florian.
PRELIMS DAY 10 - 3/9/22
Bloodsport (1-1) vs. Claw Viper (1-1)
Lessee, what I got for them…beat bad, lose to good. Old story. The run around for a bit, then Bloodsport shanks CV in the side, then Bloodsport nonchalantly smashes CV’s claw clean off. Now comes the real challenge, How Quickly Can You Finish Off The Severely Compromised Opponent Who Has Zero Chance of Winning? Having a real killer instinct impresses the selection committee and makes your machine one to be feared in the tournament. So of course Bloodsport takes ages to spin up and takes apart CV bit by bit by bit. I can’t really facepalm at this because that’s just the limitations of the design, but it’s still dispiriting to watch. And oh, look, Bloodsport just sent itself flying into the wall. Won’t affect the outcome, but that’s an ill omen for the tournament if I ever saw one. Time. Holy crap, CV, which is an absolute mess, was on the attack for about 90% of the fight and had zero drive problems. Bloodsport yooner. It’s doomed.
Madcatter (1-1) vs. Rampage (0-1)
Ah, feeding Martin Mason a scrub, because a going-nowhere heel squashing jobber after jobber is exactly the aspect of the WWE you want to incorporate here. Madcatter first hit drive destruction upper deck ten five one NEXT!!!
Huge (1-1) vs. Switchback (1-1)
They move around. Switchback is having control issues again. Memo to rookie teams: If your weapon generates a great deal of gyroscopic force, maybe put it in a place where that won’t cause serious handling problems. Huge gets a decent hit, then a big hit which sends switchback tumbling to the wall. We get to see its underside, which has “Huge problem” written on it, and as always, the line between irony and stupid macho crap blowing up in one’s face is a fine one. Switchback rights and continues not going much of anywhere. Huge is also having trouble maneuvering on those thin, slick tires, and is unable to capitalize. It momentarily as a wheel stuck in a saw notch but frees it. They lock up; lots of sparks from Switchback, nothing more. Huge may have slightly better control, but unless it starts doing some damage it’s going to be a really iffy decision. Switchback, unable to do any damage itself, turns to that mainstay, the wepper…knocking off a chunk of its spinner and bringing it to a halt. Well, you only live once, I guess. Huge is really struggling now but manages to get one last nice shot, and Switchback is now immobile. Huge looks like one of its wheels is down, but according to the eternally confusing rules, showing more uncontrolled movement means that it wins. Eh.
“WHO’S GOING TO WIN THE GIANT NUT?” Hell if I know.
Kraken (0-2) vs. Glitch (2-0)
Goddesses, just listen to Florian desperately try to spin this. “Kraken’s record is not great, but remember, they lost a pair of decisions!” Yeah, and we all know how decision losses don’t count. Aaaagh. Glitch makes good use of its omniwheels to frustrate Kraken. It gets two solid hits which knock it onto the upper deck screws, which in turn deposit it on the upper deck. Kraken looks more like a turtle as it struggles mightily on the deck to get back on its wheels; it finally manages it with the help of the wall. It seems to have real trouble rejoining the fight…and that’s why, the right wheel is maimed. Kraken can still advance, but just barely. Glitch seals the deal with two hard shots to the rear which deposit it on another screw, and now both wheels are completely busted. The count begins; the count ends. If anyone still had doubts that “impossible to knock out” was a dead horse, this just sent that doubt to the incinerator. Team Glitch has a miracle rookie run; Matt Spurk has a bunch of questions.
Mammoth (1-1) vs. Lucky (1-1)
I’ve never been big on Mammoth; it seems like the kind of bot that only wins if the opponent doesn’t prepare for it at all. In contrast, Lucky has established itself as yet another middle-of-the-pack gatekeeper. Who will make a tiny imitation of a breakthrough? Lucky draws first blood, flipping Mammoth back, then onto the upper deck screws. It’s stuck there for a while, allowing Lucky to go after the right tire…and send it clean off. And just like that, we’re into garbage time. It’s just a matter of whether Lucky can get the other wheel or the ref will see a sufficient quantity of no-righty-turny before it comes to that. Lucky flips Mammoth over, and it’s a massive struggle to get righted…but it does.
Aw…crap. Since apparently nobody’s damn allowed to put the damn nail in the damn coffin anymore, Lucky’s flipper gets partially stuck. And of course, Mammoth’s spinning club is still operational, albeit no less silly than in its first two matches. Now what was supposed to be a crushing triumph has turned into yet another aggravating game of Which Damage Matters Marginally More In The Eyes of the Judges? Aaaaaaaaaaaaagggghh. They run and run and bump and run and bump and run and bump and bump and run. Finally Mammoth loses a weapon chain and gets upended again, and now it’s too battered to recover. Well fought, Lucky. You’re also doomed.
Rusty (0-1) vs. Witch Doctor (1-1)
Geez. Yeah, you know where this is going. Let’s just get this out of the way: . WD by what-the-hell-did-you-expect.
I just had a thought: Is this a sign that the Battlebots power brokers have thrown up their hands on this pile of junk? I know a punishment when I see it, and this ticked off all the boxes. For two seasons we’ve had to hear about underdog this and inspiration that, everyone proclaiming their love for this complete scrub and gingerly avoiding the looming problem of how hopeless it was. Its wins in ’21 were over two very weak opponents, the 2-3 outing representing the absolute pinnacle of what it could have ever achieved. Now it looks like it’s worn out its welcome and from now on will have to face real opponents or get shown the door. With so many fresh and hungry rookie teams, including two phenoms in Glitch and Blip, they don’t even need it for the inspire-new-faces-to-enter-the-sport factor anymore. I’m getting a very powerful vibe that Dave Eaton has outlived his usefulness, and if he’s back in ’22, I expect the fans to get tired of his lovable scrub schtick and turn on him in a hurry.
Main event - Fusion (1-1) vs. Icewave (1-1)
One of those matchups where the winner is the one that manages to avoid crapping out longer. I would not trust either machine to go the distance. Icewave makes a lot of noise getting spun up, and Fusion cautiously approaches with the drum end. Wepper, and Icewave’s spinner is down. This is just…geez. Fusion’s lost some velocity but still active; it needs to press the attack now. It drives with the drum but can’t get it close enough to deliver more than scratches. It shoves Icewave onto an upper deck screw; a bit of metal comes off. Both of them are stuck now, is there going to be a saimin…no…ugh. Icewave gets free and bumps into Fusion, which immediately starts smoking heavily. A couple more gratuitous bumps before the inevitable. Another sobering reminder that just because you call it a “main event” doesn’t mean it’s going to be any good.
Well, this was a quick one. If it weren’t for the bracket announcements, I actually could’ve wrapped this up Thursday. The fights are still as riveting as ever, but I am just so, so burned out by the reality TV drivel. Irritating announcers, stupid interviews, hackneyed analysis, banal fluff pieces, I don’t want to suffer another second of it. All right, let’s get to the part that really matters:
Bottom left: 4 Sawblaze vs. 29 Hijinx, 13 Hypershock vs. 20 P1, 5 Uppercut vs. 28 Huge, 12 Shatter vs. 21 Riptide
I can’t shake the feeling that’s going to be either triumph or tragedy for Uppercut, nothing in between. It packs a ton of power and has a very smart design that maximizes each punch, but with so much emphasis on the ground game, it could suffer a huge letdown at any time. I thought it was very weird that it only got two matches, and I just hope it’s not a sign of trouble behind the scenes. As for Sawblaze, I stand by what I said in week 8: really good, not the champ. If it faces Uppercut in the quarters, it’s going to be a great match. Rookie Riptide is a potential spoiler candidate and is definitely not to be underestimated. All in all, a fun quadrant with no easy calls.
Bottom right: 3 Whiplash vs. 30 Icewave, 14 Cobalt vs. 19 Yeti, 6 Rotator vs. 27 Captain Shrederator, 11 Tantrum vs. 22 Gigabyte
Absolutely zero idea why Whiplash got pegged this high. It’s never had the look of a dominator or fear-inducer to me, and it was thoroughly unimpressive in its two wins (one of which, I remind you, was a split decision). Other than what should be a predictable “shocking” early exit, this one looks to be a slugfest. Tantrum, Rotator, and Gigabyte are all tough scrappers that relentlessly wear down their opponents, and Cobalt’s proven to be surprisingly effective when it can get weapon on target. I really think Brian Nabe should’ve just taken a bow, thanked the fans for their support, and walked away from ’21 with his head held high. It’s going to be damn sad to see Captain Shrederator get clobbered down to 2-2 and lose the only winning record of its career. Goddammit.
Top right: 2 Ribbot vs. 31 Hydra or Defender, 15 Madcatter vs. 18 Black Dragon, 7 Blip vs. 26 Valkyrie, 10 Jackpot vs. 23 Tombstone
New twist this season: In an effort to give another match to old favorites who happened to have a bad season (but without extending the regular season because something something cost blah-de-blah fairness yakka foob mog integrity wakasagihime) there will be play-in battles for the 31 and 32 spots. I’m not expecting either the badly ailing Hydra or enigmatic Defender to slay the giant…frog, whatever…but I think Black Dragon has a chance for an upset bid. Dismiss it at your peril. The rest are various combinations of not that good, not that good, or no longer any good. If Tombstone loses to the janky Jackpot, I think Ray Billings should hang it up. Bowing down to Captain Shrederator was humiliating enough.
Top left: 1 End Game vs. 32 Skorpios or Malice, 16 Minotaur vs. 17 Bloodsport, 8 Copperhead vs. 25 Lucky, 9 Glitch vs. 24 Witch Doctor
End Game and the Seven Crash Test Dummies. Barring a massive breakdown, I can’t imagine any of the Kiwi killer’s opposition getting the best of it. It’ll be interesting to see if Glitch is really as good as its record. If it makes it to quarters in its rookie outing, that would be an unprecedented triumph.
As always, another articulate write-up/review.
Yes there were some lows in the action, but the highs were viscerally entertaining, providing the crash/bam/pieces flying/bots flug murderously about. Some muses:
I’ve never seen a match where ‘Mammoth’ didn’t end up as a jangled pile of tubular rods.
Being a kind-sorta fan of ‘Rusty’ is one of my guilty pleasures. Maybe I’m snookered by its owner’s “man of the people” vibe, maybe I like the rustic simplicity, and maybe I like seeing it make an occasional aggressive move that puts its opponent “on the ropes” ( so to speak ), if even just briefly. Nice sportsmanship from team ‘Witch Doctor’, devoid of any “smack talk” some teams seem to overuse.
Regarding my previous inquiry of ‘Beta’ in my previous post one thread up, I actually did see a re-run of it actually using ( and actually connecting with! ) its hammer…on ‘Rusty’